ROME: Italian, French and Bulgarian fighter jets scrambled on Thursday as hoax bomb threats hit at least 27 commercial flights across Europe, authorities and airlines said.
The alerts, marking a third day of aviation disruptions this week from Ireland to Bulgaria, forced several aircraft to make unplanned landings and prompted military escorts, though all targeted planes landed safely with no explosives found.
Earlier this week, a Wizz Air flight from London’s Luton Airport to Sofia made an emergency stop in Budapest on Monday, while hoax threats targeted up to 10 flights and a cruise ship on Tuesday, closing a Warsaw airport.
The targeted flights on Thursday represented a tiny fraction of Europe’s 25,072 scheduled flights, Eurocontrolreported, and most landed without incident at their original destinations.
At least five flights received an air force escort. Over France, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s office said fighter jets accompanied an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin headed to Rome, forcing it to land at the Evreux military base 100 kilometres west of Paris.
‘Since the pilot did not cooperate as expected with authorities, the prime minister immediately ordered fighter jets to intercept the aircraft and escort it,’ his office said. Evreux prosecutor Remi Coutin said the pilot ‘allegedly refused’ to land there, ‘preferring a civilian airport.’ Italy’s air force also escorted a Finnair plane from Helsinki to Rome.
Bulgaria’s air force escorted three Ryanair planes headed for Sofia from Madrid, Copenhagen and London. While the planes from Copenhagen and Madrid landed as planned, the flight from London was diverted to Plovdiv Airport, east of the capital.
All three planes were inspected with no explosives found, an interior ministry spokesperson said.
Elsewhere, disruptions were shorter but still significant. In Spain, authorities received three emailed bomb threats in under 20 minutesinvolving two Air Europa departures from Madrid to Paris and four inbound Iberia flights from Rome and Milan, Spain’s Guardia Civil said.
Several aircraft in Madrid were halted or returned to their stands while passengers disembarked for inspections.
In Warsaw, a LOT Polish Airlines flight to Paris was stopped as it taxied toward takeoff and passengers were transferred to another aircraft, while a flight from Cork, Ireland, was delayed 90 minutes. A Wizz Air flight from Milan to Warsaw diverted to Vienna.
At Copenhagen Airport, two threatened planes landed as scheduled and were searched by Danish police, who reported ‘no danger’ to passengers.
In the Czech Republic, four planes bound for Prague, including two EasyJet flights from Britain, a Ryanair flight from Ireland and a Sky Express flight from Greece, landed safely after receiving anonymous emailed threats.
Other threatened aircraft also landed as scheduled, including flights operated by Finnair, LOT, Wizz Air and Air Serbia, as well as two planes in Milan.No claim of responsibility was made for all the flights, but threats sent to airports in Sofia and Rome contained misogynistic messages warning that ‘explosive devices’ had been placed on three Ryanair flights to Bulgaria and two flights to Rome.
‘We, fighters of the Male State, with our actions today will leave a mark in history. Your feminist regime will remember it forever.
The explosion will occur in 60 minutes. Today your skies will turn red,’ the message read.
A Russian far-right movement called the Male State uses Nazi symbolism and has ‘thousands of members’, said Inpact founder Lou Osborn, though no link was confirmed.
European Union transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas wrote on X that it was ‘too early to draw conclusions on whether the reported incidents are linked’.
Still, European officials have accused Russia of masterminding ‘hybrid attacks’ across countries supporting Ukraine, alongside recent cyberattacks that shut down supermarket refrigerators and affe cted French blood banks. Russia denies involvement.-Agencies